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When working in real time with large numbers
of students, how can the faculty member quickly assess what
each of those students currently understands, or
misunderstands? How can that assessment be used to directly
foster deeper understanding? And how does the learning space
affect the faculty member's ability to do those things?
As we do with all these materials in learning space design
and evaluation, let's begin with how particular physical
spaces can make such activity easier, or harder, and then,
below, discuss how the design of a virtual learning space
can affect this kind of feedback activity.
Physical learning space: The
Interactive Engagement style of physics teaching pioneered
by Eric Mazur of Harvard is one strategy for dealing
with this problem Its question-answer cycle begins when the
faculty member asks students a question, often focused on an
easy-to-misunderstand idea or on a type of problem that can
be analyzed in more than one way. Students are equipped with
some method of responding simultaneously to the question:
colored cards they can hold up (red for answer 1, green for
answer 2, etc.) or some form of student feedback device.
With such a device, students answer
challenging conceptual questions individually, discuss their
answers with a neighbor, and are then polled again. Digital
personal responses can come from a small handheld device
specially made for this purpose, from a laptop, or even
(it's my impression) from a cell phone. Some publishers
provide them for use with their books.
For much more on clickers and comparable
classroom polling systems, their uses, relevant literature,
and using formative evaluation to improve their power,
click here.
Blended learning space: The faculty
member might be with a relatively small group of students in
a physical space while other students participate from dorm
rooms or learning labs) via streaming video to their
computers. I first heard of this blended approach being
used at Wayne State University in an experimental education
program with Ford Motor Company in the early 1990s. The
students sitting at computers use their computers' keyboards
to provide feedback (not only multiple choice but text).
This seems like a multiple win design for a classroom: a)
students have more feedback capability at less cost, b) the
class is recorded for review later, and c) less physical
space needed for huge classrooms. But we don't yet know of
any contemporary examples of this idea in use. Do you?
Let us know!
Virtual space: This approach can be
implemented with surveys or other feedback forms in
asynchronous interaction (e.g., with a course management
system). Some systems for real-time online interaction
feature polling systems that can be used for this same
purpose. For example, if you took part in a 2007 TLT Group
webcast on "Frequently Made Objections to Assessment, and
How to Respond," you would have seen these two examples of
audience polling.
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asked whether colleagues were concerned about
assessment robbing them of power; they were asked to
put a check mark in the column that most closely
matched their reaction to the question. The
checkmarks are anonymous and appeared quickly;
dozens of participants quickly responded, everyone
could see it, and could immediately build on that.
For the same session, we also used Flashlight Online
to survey participants, and then displayed selected
results on screen (image on the far right).
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Many systems for real-time and asynchronous interaction have
features such as white boards, surveys, quizzes, etc. that
can be adopted for use as personal response systems. The
same questions, however, asked of classroom systems can also
be asked about these, for example:
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Can students respond in
text? numbers? or just by answering multiple choice
questions (A, B, C, etc.)?
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Can students "click" at
any time to indicate that they don't understand what's
going on? or can they only respond when the faculty
member asks a question?
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Can student responses be
identified by individual (e.g., for grading?
display?)
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Can student responses be
automatically fed into grading systems, so students get
credit for responding, and for right answers?
Stephen C. Ehrmann, The TLT
Group
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